The Power Sock

Many people, including me, have been defeated by Robert A. Caro’s massive biography of Robert Moses, The Power Broker. I own the book, and got as far as Chapter 5 in a week, and I’ve been stuck there since November 2006. Anyway, I went to see two of the Robert Moses exhibits currently in New York today, and I’m sure it would have been even better if I had read the book first, but I didn’t.

(Adam, who takes all the beautiful photos on this site, was being driven crazy by his side job of being the official photographer for New York Minknit and so he gave me his old camera. Fortunately for you, the readers, this means that I can now post photos of traveling sock when it is not near Adam. Unfortunately for you, this means the photo quality is going way down, since I do not currently have the photo skillz of Adam. So, I apologize for the quality of these photos, since I am still learning how to use the camera.)

Here is the second Ugly/Spring sock in front of a proposed Mid-Manhattan Expressway that Moses was trying to get built from 1946-1971. At one point, it was suggested that the Expressway run through the tenth floor of the Empire State Building. Craziness!

This was the Robert Moses exhibit at the Museum of the City of New York, which was pretty good. I had no idea that Robert Moses built Tavern on the Green and the Central Park Zoo. (One plaque said that before Moses built the Central Park Zoo, the old zoo had these deranged animals that were prone to attacking visitors. Moses also wanted to build an “oldsters’ home” in the Ramble, in Central Park. Perhaps I should really finish that Caro book.) Also: free before noon! And lots of intense Robert Moses quotes:

Then I went with my friend to see the Panorama that Moses commissioned for the 1964 World’s Fair.

But first. The Unisphere.

The Panorama is awesome. Since it’s a permanent exhibit at the Queens Museum of Art, you can go at any time. Until next week, the Queens Museum of Art is also showing a related Robert Moses exhibit. We ran out of time to check that out, but it looks great too.

The sock hovers over the Manhattan part of the Panorama, a mini-replica of the entire city of New York, including all five boroughs and all of the bridges.

Since Adam normally takes the photos, he’s used to my weird photo schemes for showing off the knitting. But today, I had to try and distract my friend–“Look! It’s Staten Island!”–while I was taking photos. But I finally had to admit that I was, yes, taking photos of a sock.

This post is more about the New York part and less about the Minknit part of the blog, but more real knitting content to come soon.

2 Responses to “The Power Sock”

[…] year at the Met; or hell, were just beautiful, like that Amish quilt show I saw in fifth grade. That Robert Moses show, though not an art show, was informative, interesting, and thought-provoking. That, at the least, […]

[…] visited two of the remaining remnants of the 1964 World’s Fair, the other being the awesome Panorama.) By the way, as an occasional reader of weird pop culture history books and through my many years […]